Your Name Here Stadium

Or Cheap Ubiquity Coliseum. A trend in North American sports over the last decade to have corporate names usurptraditional names of venues - Candlestick Park became 3Com Park; Riverfront Stadium became Cinergy Field; Jack Murphy Stadium became... hell, I forget what it is this year. It makes its own screwy sense, since sports broadcasts have become ad-packed, even during the game - the "Bell Atlantic Call to the Bullpen", the "Advil Starting Lineups"...

The human scale is lost. We once identified with the name of a place - I know who Jack Murphy was, and why he (deservedly) had a ballpark named after him, and even Wrigley Field was more about a family than a chewing gum conglomerate. The new-style slapped-on corporate brand name and logo obliterates that humanity, often on the cheap; the money paid by Your Name Here is little more than enough to cover the salary of a mediocre athlete.

Many newer structures bypass the naming process completely, and have a corporate name attached from Day One, and it has even reached overseas, with football's Bolton Wanderers now playing in all-mod-cons Reebok Stadium.